


Sea-Queen

by Narya_Flame



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Explicit Language, F/F, Mildly Dubious Consent, Númenor, Pre-Canon, Sea-longing, Second Age, Sexual Content, Uneasy Relationship, experimental structure, very short chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-24 14:07:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16176644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/pseuds/Narya_Flame
Summary: Erendis makes a bargain with the Lady of the Sea.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anthean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthean/gifts).



> I know you said this was your favourite tale in the legendarium. I really, really hope you don't mind the liberties I've taken with it; writing this pairing took a bit of re-interpretation.

When her father was dying she went to the sea.

Its whispers had filled her childhood dreams. Its foam and salted currents had kissed her ankles through the hot summer days. She had hunted shells by its shores, sung songs to its horizon, crept into its cliffside caves and told her secrets to the deep still pools its tides left behind. Now, under a star-speckled sky, she clambered out along the rocky brig and sat with her legs dangling into its depths. Tendrils of sea-plants curled around her calves and tickled her skin.

“I know you're out there.” She closed her eyes. “Please. Help him.”

The wind combed long sharp fingers through her hair. _And what would you give me, Erendis, if I do?_

“Anything. Everything.”

The roll and break of the waves on the rocks was like a deep, echoing laugh. _You are a maid of eighteen. Your father is an old man._ The wind's breath tickled the nape of her neck. _You would give me your life – green, unseasoned – instead of his, long and full of memory and care? It is not a fair exchange._ The current pushed gently at her legs, rejecting her. _Go home, child. You do not know what you ask._

Fury and pride rose in Erendis like a snarling animal. “I will not! This is my offer: you will have me, and spare him. Otherwise I leave.” She blinked needling tears from her eyes and tipped her face up to the sky. “I give you myself, Lady Uinen. Take me now or not at all.”

The tide rushed into the rock pools, chuckling as though the words amused it – and then the sea-plants tightened around her ankles and tugged, and she was under the waves before she could draw breath, salt stinging her eyes, her hair curling about her in ghostly tendrils.

_Do you hold to your word now?_

She opened her mouth and the deep sharp taste of the sea burned in her throat. _Yes._

Something rough and cold caressed her skin. A mouth of pointed teeth fastened over hers, bit down. Blood and ancient magic filled her mouth; her chest ached, and her mind drifted towards the dark.

_And now?_

The voice seemed to come from a great distance. She struggled to form the reply. _Yes._

The touches grew gentler, softer, slipping under the thin fabric of her nightdress, rubbing slowly back and forth over her left nipple. The water muffled the shocked moan that escaped her as a sweet, fierce longing awoke in her cunt, and then she was pressed close against another body, a woman's. Cool fingers teased her open, circled lightly over the secret places inside her. A gentle brush of something like lips against her cheek, but they had the prickling slime of fish scales. _Now? Do you still hold to your bargain, Erendis?_

The warm promise of ecstasy swelled in her like the tide, and she gave herself to the ocean's arms. _I do._

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

She woke on the shore at dawn, dress ripped, hair full of salted tangles, the whisper of a woman's voice echoing in her ear.

_Go and live a while, pretty one. Make memories. Love, and grieve – and then come back to me._

She pressed her hips into the sand, moaning. _When?_

A cold kiss to her temple. A trailing caress along the line of her waist and hip. _You will know._

She whimpered as the strange, forbidden yearning rose in her again. Slowly she rolled onto her back and blinked her eyes open - but the beach was empty save for shells and seaweed, and the fingers of white foam that curled up through the sand around her.

 


	3. Chapter 3

She played her part prettily through the years, and buried her secret deep - but her love for Aldarion was no lie, nor were the wild jealous stabs of her lonely nights. Once  she heard Uinen's teasing voice in her mind, half-present like the echo of a dream.

 _He has been half mine since he was a boy._ A silver-lipped smile, a caress like summer sea spray. _Perhaps I should take him instead of you. It would certainly be easy._

Erendis flung anger and venom after the taunts. _That was not our bargain!_

The mocking laugh retreated like a broken wave from the shore.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Aldarion's voyages grew longer.  The enchantment was deep in his soul, and Erendis could not prise it out, nor could her own love displace it. 

She rejected the name _Uinéniel._ She made her home in the green country at the island's heart, far, far from the sea.


	5. Chapter 5

Her bed was cold and her hair was grey when Erendis went back to the shore. She was too old now to scramble over rocks, so she stood ankle-deep in the waves, froth kissing her skin as it had in summers gone by.

“I know you're out there.” She tilted her head and looked to the horizon. “You called. I am here.”

Moonlight glittered on the waters of the bay, and the tide hissed in and out of the rocks – and then the voice came to her, soft and fair and as old as the world itself. _I began to doubt you would come._

Erendis waded further into the shallows, wincing at the creak of her joints. “We made a bargain, did we not?”

The wind in her hair again, a cold damp touch on her arm. _That we did._ A hand in hers – and, turning, for the first time Erendis saw her. She was clad in silver, her eyes storm-grey, her hair streaming with green fronds. She flowed up from the sea as though formed by the waves themselves. _Oh, my child, look at you now._

“Am I so hideous?” The water climbed up past her knees, her thighs, her waist. 

Uinen laughed and kissed her lips. _No, proud beauty. Far from it._ She slipped her arms around her waist, pressed their hips together, stroked Erendis's long grey hair. _You are ready; that is all._ Another kiss, tender, insistent, longing. _Will you come?_

“Yes.” Erendis followed her towards the horizon. The water was over her shoulders now, and her hair spread around her like pond weed. “Yes, I will.”


	6. Chapter 6

"I know what I saw."  Gimlân the crab-fisher folded his arms and scowled at this green boy, who claimed to be an emissary from the King.  "She went into the water and turned to sea-foam.  It was as plain as day."

The young messenger sighed.  "Move on," he called to the men behind him.

But the days passed, becoming weeks and then months, and no body was found.  After a time the search was called off.  With no body there could be no funeral, no grave; Tar-Elestirnë's only memorial was a brief, solemn note in Númenor's annals.  

_Erendis perished in water in the year 985._

But the common folk who loved her knew differently.  Each year on the night of her disappearance they laid sprigs of _oiolairë_  on the shore, then watched as the foaming waves crept up the sand.  The tide's long white fingers caressed the branches, accepted them, and bore them lightly back out to sea.

 


End file.
